I was recently asked at a presentation why the ‘G’ in HGTV has almost completely disappeared. If you didn’t know, the G stands for gardening and at one time there were plenty of television shows about planting, horticulture and design. Now they are all gone. Even the current series, Backyard Builds really doesn’t talk about gardening although they do outdoor makeovers on it. It’s a bit of a challenge because as a hobby, gardening had been in decline for the last 10 years. A decade ago, gardening was listed as the top hobby in Canada right next to bird watching. So what happened? Did that demographic die off? Why has gardening become hot again and how do we keep it that way?

Back in its prime, anything with the word ‘garden’ in it was an instant moneymaker and we all know that money is what drives trends. Gardening doesn’t make money anymore. Gardening has been replaced with this concept of outdoor living. It all started with the introduction of the ‘low maintenance’ backyard. Homeowners began to realize that they could have beautiful outdoor spaces without having to put a lot of work into them. It’s a bit sad, but many homeowners would rather pay to get exercise at the gym wearing fashionable work-out wear than get sweaty in their own backyards creating something beautiful. The media has definitely helped this shift as commercials and advertisers make more money when homeowners pay for products or services instead of doing the work themselves.

Now I don’t believe that this is the only reason for the change in our outdoor habits, but it is definitely a big one. I actually feel bad because I’ve been a part of it for so long. Creating the perfect backyards for magazines and television shows has been my life for the last 20years. So how do I help you get back to basics in your outdoor space?

The good news is that the move is already on. Thanks to the Millennials and to some industrious Gen X’ers, the idea of healthy food is driving a new movement called GIY (Grow It Yourself). Now homeowners are growing food in containers, starting vegetable gardens and paying attention to what is going on in the backyard. We are also seeing a major move away from urban centres. This is in part to the pandemic, but also a desire to have space. Today's new homers list having a yard as a big reason to move away from condos, townhomes and urban houses. As of today, gardening is back on top in North America and if you include caring for houseplants, there are now more than 12,000,000 blog sites on horticulture in some form

It also doesn’t hurt that scientists have found that inhaling the naturally occurring bacteria in soil has similar effects to taking Prozac. 

 After a long absence in the media, who knew that gardening would be the new fix!

This is the perfect time of year to be thinking about the soil in your beds and around your home.  Many gardeners are starting to move away from chemical fertilizers and are moving toward ecological choices, such as organic soils or composting as a way to reduce waste and make the garden greener. 

Composting is a natural way of recycling. The process decomposes and transforms organic material into nutrient rich soil. A perfectly good compost pile can be built out of nothing fancier than the leaves and grass clippings you are taking off of the lawn right now. Other “ingredients” can include: fruit and vegetable scraps, yard trimmings, paper, wood and organic kitchen waste that are not protein based. 

It usually takes six months to a year to get soil from the composting process. A good way to speed up this process is to regularly mix your compost to allow air into the pile.  Here are three ingredients that always work well in your mix:

1) Eggshells: As a natural form of calcium, eggshells are perfect in your compost mix. Don’t be worried if they don’t completely break down by the time you spread the soil under your plants. My grandmother has told me that putting eggshells around the hostas helps to prevent slugs because they avoid crawling over sharp edges. I’m not sure I buy this, but she’s been doing it for years and the garden looks great.

2) Coffee Grounds: Used coffee grounds add acidity to the compost. This acidity is perfect for hydrangeas, which rely on a higher acid level in the soil to produce the blue blooms instead of the pink ones.

3) Organic soil or bagged manure. Now this may sound a little odd to be adding soil to create soil. It’s really the organisms that naturally occur in the soil that you want in your composter. This is even more important if the composter is placed on concrete or has a base preventing your mix from contacting the ground below because the organisms won’t be able to start the decomposition process. Make sure you choose a sterilized version if you are going with manure. Cows and sheep eat grass. Their stomachs don’t breakdown the seeds from the weeds. This means that you are spreading whatever they ate directly on your garden in a ready-to-grow form.

Going organic with your soil choices is an important first step in growing and feeding you plants with all of the healthy nutrients that Mother Nature provides. If you can’t compost your own ingredients, buy products that are clearly labelled organic so that you can grow with confidence that you plants are getting the best